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Mother’s Day Potpourri – Clare’s Mom Hearts: Dan Marino

My mom has never been much of a sports fan. Sports are my father’s domain. She likes the New Orleans Saints for aesthetic reasons (she loves fleur-de-lis), she tolerates the Eagles because they’re only on once a week, and she grinds her teeth when pitchers throw to first to hold a runner on base.

But then there’s Dan Marino.

My love of Dan Marino comes straight from my mom. When my mom was teaching, her students could always curry favor with her by bringing her Dan’s news clippings or football cards. By the time they both retired in 2000, my mom had a sizable shrine to No. 13 in her classroom. Every year, during her Pennsylvania studies unit, she made sure one of her students did a report on the Pittsburgh native. Hysterical with joy (and drunk off my ass) I once called my mom to do play-by-play when Dan made a surprise appearance with a bunch of other Pitt football greats during halftime of a Pitt football game (“AAAA! MOMMY! DAN MARINO IS HERE! AT THE FOOTBALL GAME! YES, RIGHT NOW! DAN! MY MOM AND I LOVE YOU!”)

We stay up late on Wednesday nights to watch Inside the NFL. We admire how devoted he is to autism research. We cried when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. For obvious reasons, we imagine that we’d like his wife, Claire.

About Clare

My Dad has been a Dolphins fan since the ’70s. While I’m not a Dolphins fan, I become very defensive when someone tries to say he’s not one of the best quarterbacks ever because he didn’t win a Super Bowl.

Dan Marino is not one of the best QBs every because he didn’t win a Super Bowl. Kidding, kidding, he was definitely one of the best.

Oh, and Clare, the NFL Hall of Fame jackets are nowhere near beige. They are about as bright a yellow as you want to have. They are the NFL’s version of the Masters’ jackets: ugly to others but beautiful to you if you have one.

My mom is a nurse and when she ran the emergency room at a hospital in Ft. Laudy way back in the day she treated Dan’s mom. Dan was incredibly nice and my mom told him that I was his biggest fan (I am still) and he offered to sign anything she had for me. My mom said no. We haven’t talked since then *.

* I’m obviously lying about not talking but if I was my mom I owuld have made a football out of my own leg flesh and had him sign it. Damnit, mom. Also, my mom saved Steve Guttenberg’s mom’s life at that same hospital. All I asked for was an apology for anything he has ever done.